A western fellow — bristly (5)

I believe the answer is:

awned

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'bristly' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?

'a western fellow' is the wordplay.
'western' becomes 'w'.
'fellow' becomes 'ned' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'a'+'w'+'ned'='AWNED'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for awned that I've seen is " Bristled".)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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